Let's Vote on Giving Yankees a Stadium;What's in a Name?

Published: April 8, 1996

To the Editor:

The newly named Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League, assayed by Russell Baker (column, April 2), recall a much earlier and admittedly obscure manifestation of literary inspiration in the denomination of athletic teams.

The Harlem Renaissance Five, an African-American professional basketball team, came into being in 1923. The team's name, commonly shortened to Rens, invoked a significant cultural movement of that decade in New York City involving such figures as Alain Locke, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay and Jean Toomer.

As the football Ravens have reminded Mr. Baker of Edgar Allan Poe's tragic associations with Baltimore, the fate of the Rens recalls professional basketball's segregation by race until the Rochester Royals signed William (Dolly) King in 1945.

King lettered in three sports at Long Island University and earned national acclaim in doing so, but before integrating professional basketball he was thwarted in his efforts to attain tryouts with New York City's Giants (football), Knickerbockers (basketball) and Yankees (baseball).

MICHAEL H. EBNER Lake Forest, Ill., April 5, 1996 The writer is a professor of history at Lake Forest College.